In this paper an insolvency prediction model is formulated through a combination of different quantitative variables extracted from the Annual Accounts of sample firms for the period 1994-1997. Adapting Donalson’s model of financial flexibility, Van Frederikslust applied this to the insolvency prediction. In this paper, we apply the model to a sample of textile industry firms. Although the results were not positive, the mast important thing is to highlight in which way we attained discriminant insolvency prediction models and tested a theoretical formulation of this problem.
Key words: insolvency, bankruptcy, ratios, financial flexibility.

Accounting historians have paid little attention to the accounting management of municipal public banking in the Kingdom of Aragon. This paper analyses the development of accounting management legislation of the Taula de Canvis (Valencian public banking) from its reopening in 1519 until the first decade of the 17th century -with specific reference to the Ordenanzas de la Taula and the Capitols del Quitament. Key legislative documents have been examined including: the Codice nº 12 and the Manuals de Consells, which are held in the Archivo Municipal de Valencia. The analysis of these documents shows that municipal lawmakers took into account periodic accounting revision and internal control as well as standard bookkeeping practices.
Key words: accounting banking, accounting history. Valencia 16-17th centuries.

The decentralisation of services brings about the fragmentation of accounting information about public sector economic activity. There is a need, therefore, to establish consolidated balance sheets, since they provide more relevant information than that obtained by merely aggregating the data contained in individual financial statements. At the local level, many studies have been written about the problem of consolidation, however, much less attention has been paid to the autonomous level. Given the experience gained after consolidating the statements of the Junta de Andalusia, this paper deals with two main issues. First, it examines the problems this process poses in the scope of public firms in the autonomous regions. Second, it explains the peculiarities that arose for the specific case of the corporate public sector of the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian regional government).
Key words: corporate public sector, consolidated financial statement.

Throughout the 199Os, we have witnessed a wave of publications on the Codes of Corporate Governance in different countries. The main objective of these codes is to improve the Corporate Governance of firms by providing recommendations for companies. One of the frequent recommendations is to create an audit committee within the company, with a view to guaranteeing the independence of the auditors, as well as the integrity and reliability of accounting information. Among other reasons, the lack of the auditor s \\\’ independence, managers\\\’ negligent behaviour, the publication of fraudulent financial information, the 105S o/ the shareholders\\\’ confidence in this information, as well as the lack of adequate internal control systems, has given rise to the establishment o/ audit committees in the countries of the Anglo-Saxon environment. The objective of this article is to emphasise the \\\’Ole that audit committees play in companies and how this results in better quality information and fraud avoidance. Although, in theory, audit committees are conceived as effective, some empirical studies seem to suggest that this effectiveness is not really /found in practice. In this way, the study of previous literature allows us to analyse to what extent the effectiveness o/ audit committees can be questioned.
Key words: Codes of Corporate Governance, fraudulent information, audit committees.

Given the relevance of the statutory audit, this paper examines the auditor\’s report of a sample of companies during several periods. The objective is to confirm the influence of certain factors on the auditor\’s opinion, and analyze the relation between those factors and the audit firm type. In order lo achieve this, several univariate tests are carried out and a logistic regression model is estimated. The results of the statistical procedures enable us to reach conclusions about the factors that have an influence on the auditor\’s opinion.
Key words: auditor\’s report, legal auditors, statutory audit, auditor’s opinion.

The objective of this paper is to analyse managers\’ perceptions, from a sample of Spanish companies, about 1he relevance of costs and benefits associated with voluntary information disclosure. The aim is to test whether such perceptions are influenced by two company characteristics -size and listing status- wich have been identified as the mast important variables in explaining disclosure variability across companies. Our analysis shows that, although perceptions related to costs are similar between those companies analysed in this study, listed and bigger ones enjoy greater benefits. The existence of a more favorable cost-benefit relationship is expected in these companies. which explains their higher propensity to disclose information.
Key words: voluntary information, costs, benefits.